There's little more frustrating than a mystery that was never solved.
The victim's family never gets closure, a killer may still be at large, and our minds continue to spin trying to figure out how something happened.
Perhaps most frustrating of all is knowing that there is an explanation for it out there somewhere.
And, there are people desperate to find it.
"You get the opportunity to find out the truth behind one unsolved case, which are you choosing?"
Missing Friend
"I wish I could find out what happened to my childhood best friend."
"She went missing ten years ago and nothing was discovered about the case since."- Weevelle
Missing Neighbor
"There was a kid that went missing right around my hometown when I was a kid."
"Couple years younger than me."
"It was on the news a bit, it kinda fizzled out and I haven't been able to find anything since."
"Still see flyers for him now and then. Kyron Horman."- KnockerFogger69
Murderer On The Loose
"For all my french redditors here, I will say the Xavier Dupont De Ligonnès case."
"The guy killed all his family and buried them under his concrete deck, before disappearing completely without leaving any traces, and it has been more than ten years."- OopsieDoopsi
Mysterious Death
"Gareth Williams, that MI6 guy who was found dead inside a padlocked suitcase."
"His death was ruled as a self-inflicted accident and then later some former KGB guy would claim the KGB killed him after failing to convert him to a double agent."- adweeeb·
Not A Simple Hit And Run...
"Two boys I went to school with were killed in a hit and run by the side of the road while walking home from a party.'
"According to some reports, only one of the boys died from being hit by a car and the other appeared to have been beaten to death."
"It's been 20 years and no one has ever confessed or offered any information about the case."- an-invisible-titan
What Is Her Brother-In-Law Hiding?
"Rebecca Reusch."- illuminalice
Top Of Everybody's List
"Zodiac killer."- tdunc1994
Unknown Assassin
"Olof Palme, PM of Sweden."- Swedish_STD
What Are They Hiding?
"Where is Shelly Miscavige?"- Bucketlist074
Tragically Confusing
"Asha Degree."
"9-year-old girl left her house in the middle of the night, while it was storming and cold, with a pre packed bag of clothes."
"She had no reason to run away, and had limited computer access."
"A truck driver said they saw her walking that same early morning on the dark next to the highway, and that she ran into the woods."
"Over a year later, her backpack was found wrapped in a plastic bag about 26 miles away, which didn’t yield any further developments."
"Why did she leave?"
"Why did she run from the trucker?"
"How did her backpack end up so far away?"
"Is she still alive?"
"Was she met with foul play?"- bookloverpink
A Step-By-Step Guide
"Alcatraz escapees."- Ceyram
Who Was That Guy?!?!
"Jennifer Kesse."
"I am not sure why, but this is the one case I haven't been able to stop thinking about for years."
"The surveillance video of the perp who parked her car drives me insane."- imalittleredhouse
They Deserve Justice
"My friends' murder."
"He was killed ten years ago over Thanksgiving weekend, and his case still remains open today."
"His family deserves to know."- ToulouseDM
Hopefully Not For Long
"I know it's very recent but the Idaho college murders."- surgeryboy7
It's tragic that these mysteries remain unsolved.
But if there is anything to be gained from this mystery, it's the fact that these poor people will never be forgotten.
As the saying goes, "you die twice, once when you take your last breath, and once when they stop saying your name."
Everyone keeps secrets from their families.
Most of the time, these are fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things, like accidentally breaking a window with a baseball but blaming it on a fallen branch, or claiming the dog ruined your mother's favorite pair of shoes when you actually wore them for a grand night out.
Some people, however, are better at keeping secrets than others, and often take these secrets with them to the grave.
In doing so, however, they still might leave behind a trail of breadcrumbs, which will leave their surviving family members with a slew of unanswered questions, which will likely remain unanswered.
Even if people will forever continue to do their best to solve what these clues actually mean.
"What's your family's unsolved mystery?"
Something Is Definitely Fishy...
"The day my father died from a car accident involving a boat trailer In the middle of nowhere out of state in 1991, my mom found a box with a Chinese medicine ball with a bell inside and a letter that said, 'I am sorry'."
"It was in our mailbox."
"She found it before she got the call that my father had died."
"The first autopsy on my father said there was a high blood alcohol content."
"My mom demanded a second autopsy, and there was no alcohol in him."
"She had seen him less than hour before he died and he hadn't been drinking that morning."
"My father was a third party candidate for state governor and published an independent newspaper talking about corrupt politicians and organizations."- neurotica_9000
Save Your Pennies...
"When my great-great-uncles house was to be torn down, they found old money hidden EVERYWHERE, even in the floor and the walls."
"Nobody knows where he had all that money from."- Imaginary_Town3642
Whatever Happened To Alice?
"In England around 1880 my 3x great grandmother received a letter from her daughter."
"She read it, threw it in the fire and said 'she’s made her bed, she’ll have to lie in it'.”
"My 2x ggmother never knew what happened to her sister Alice and later immigrated to the US."
"A couple years ago an unknown DNA relative from that branch reached out on Ancestry."
"She’s mixed race with Jamaican roots but doesn’t have clear written family records."
"I suspect that we’re connected through Alice."- EmmeryAnn
He's Out There Somewhere
"Who is my maternal grandfather?"
"The name on my mom's birth certificate is the guy my grandmother was married to at the time but military records show that he was out of the country when my mom would've been conceived."
"DNA also backs this up."
"Sadly, none of my close DNA matches will respond to me."- agreeingstorm9
Safe To Say, He Was Up To No Good
"What my great uncle got up to after he disappeared to Mexico in the early 80s."
"Great Uncle was a fairly unstable individual."
"Rough childhood, shipped off to Vietnam."
"Came back, got a wife and had a son."
"Got heavily involved with organized crime in the city my family is from."
"Became very abusive to his wife and my cousin."
"Wife takes cousin and leaves him."
"Great Uncle spends next several years chasing them."
"FBI eventually gets involved, and he just ups and disappears."
"We find out he had gone to Mexico when, 16 years later, my Grandmother gets a call from his daughter saying that he had passed away."
"The fact that he had apparently been not only alive the entire time, but had also started another family was a surprise."
"My cousin, despite everything, decided he should attend the funeral in Mexico."
"At the viewing, he tells us that two well dressed guys pull up in a Town Car, approach the casket, snap a quick picture of my deceased great uncle, and leave."
"Without having said a single word to anyone."
"We have a lot of questions."- Ok_Counter_4610
What They Don't Know, Won't Hurt Them...
"An intentionally unsolved one to make you laugh."
"When I was say 10 I hated cutting the grass, we had a brutally steep hill and it was never fun."
"Our lawn mower had gotten old and hard to start, so a brilliant kid idea came to me, sabotage!"
"Now I was no slacker here, I thought it through."
"I carefully pulled the starter cord out about halfway and frayed it so that it was just half cut."
"Then I went inside and told my Stepfather I could not start it."
'He naturally enough went outside to show me that I could and was just being lazy."
"The be fair I was but the cord lasted about three hard pulls before snapping, which led to the air turning blue from the cursing."
"This was apparently such a frustrating thing that we ended up with a brand new self-propelled, mower, a huge success."
"Fast forward 20 years and when this story was finally told by my sister it was not believed."
"He insisted that it broke because it was a pile of garbage, he was there after all! "
"I could only laugh at this."
"I think he believes to this day I could not have pulled that off."- bullwinkle8088
A Likely Story...
"What my grandfather actually did in the military."
"He said he was an accountant, that he wrote paychecks."
"But we also know for a fact he spoke Russian, was a crack shot with a rifle, to the point when I was in JROTC doing the shooting drills he warned me to miss a few times on purpose, because crack shots get made into snipers, and snipers don't live long, and we discovered after his death that 'was an accountant' is an extremely common cover story."- Edymnion
Her Own Fault For Leaving It Unattended
"Someone took a chunk out of aunt Eliza's pumpkin pie when nobody was around at our family thanksgiving back in 1994 and they still do not let the subject go to this day."
"Anyways It was me and I can never tell them."- blackmobius
Always Two Steps Ahead Of Everybody
"My Grandmother used to answer, old-school rotary, phones before they rang and there was always someone on the line."
"She would also tell us to go open the door for family and friends seconds to minutes before they were even in sight of the house."
"She was an extraordinary lady."- Poopybut58
Gone Without A Trace
"My great-grandfather was said to have up and disappeared one day."
"No signs of it beforehand, he was only 70 and still very active, was still involved in the business, and all of the extended family was living in the same area."
"Even more surprising was that in that small town where most people knew him, nobody even noticed him leave."
"My grandma still cries on his birthdays and on the anniversary of the day he disappeared."
"He was very well loved."
"This was way back in 1985, suburban India."- LiveInTheFlow
There is little more frustrating than not having closure.
Then again, there's a reason why "ignorance is bliss", leaving one to wonder if certain mysteries should remain unsolved.
It's not difficult to understand why true crime content, be it in film, television, or podcast continues to grow in popularity.
Of course, the most fascinating crime stories are those which remain unsolved.
It allows us to put on our detective hats, and evaluate the cases ourselves, hoping we might find the answers which evaded the police at the time.
Knowing full well, the answers may never arrive.
"What is the strangest mystery that is still unsolved?"
Atomic Cover-Up
"The lost A-bomb off the coast of America, which the US government said not to worry about in the 50's and tried to cover up."
"Was dumped in the ocean in an aviation accident and it's still lost to this day."
"100x more powerful than what was dropped in Japan."- BremCrumbs
Targeted Divorcée
"I remember seeing a video about a woman that after getting divorced started getting stalked and assaulted in her own house."
"Every time police would arrive no one more than her was at the scene, sometimes she would appear with bruises, once she appeared with a screwdriver through her hand."
"This happened so many times that police started ignoring her calls after the investigation on her husband and on the case left no suspects."
"Three months later she disappeared just to reappear next to a highway in the middle of the desert, miles away from her house, with her hands tied, dead."
"Autopsy later confirmed she was beaten to death."
"Creepiest sh*t I know."- JustCallMeAttlaz
The Oakville Blob
"The Oakville Blob."
"In 1994, there was a rainstorm in Oakville, WA."
"Only the 'raindrops' were a strange clear substance that had the consistency of Jello."
"Lots of people experienced flu-like symptoms after coming into contact with it, and peoples' dogs and cats all over the city were dying."
"When a local hospital ran a lab test on the substance after one of the patients suggested it, it was found that whatever this mysterious 'rain' was, it had human white blood cells in it."
"Some time after that, a sample was also sent to the Washington State Health Laboratory, where it was being researched by epidemiologist Mike McDowell."
"After he determined that it was man-made and speculated that it was some sort of matrix for transporting viruses/bacteria, the samples suddenly went missing from the containment facility and his supervisor told him not to ask any questions."
"There are no known samples of the stuff anywhere today, despite being sent to several different facilities by various Oakville residents."
"So yeah, I'd personally say that this was clearly some sort of bio-weapon test run, but by whom?"
"I'd like to give the US Government the benefit of the doubt here and assume it wasn't us testing something like that on our own citizens, but if it wasn't, why would it have been covered up like that?"
"And you'd think an event like this would be a lot less obscure."
"Also, even if it being a bio-weapon seems super obvious, how the heck did whoever dispersed it manage to make it rain over an entire city for several days?"- Xaldyn
A Family Thing
"An unsolved murder of an entire family in Japan which to this day remains unsolved despite DNA evidence indicating the ancestry of the killer, a sand sample left by the killer which was traced back to the California desert near Edwards AFB, and even sesame seeds in the killer's stool."- PaperbackWriter66
The Circleville Letters
"THE CIRCLEVILLE LETTERS."
"In 1976, residents of the small city south of Columbus Ohio began receiving handwritten sinister and graphic letters."
"Each letter included secret and dark details about their personal lives."
"One resident received a ton of letters, accusing her of various unsavory acts."
"The author warned the resident that he had been keeping an eye on her home, as well as her comings and goings."
"The resident was horrified and tried to keep the letters a secret until her husband began receiving them."
"The attacks on the family continued, with large posters appearing around town spreading rumors about their 12 year old child."
"One day in 1977, the husband left the house after receiving a call from who he thought was writing the letters."
"A few minutes later, the husband was found dead at the end of the street dead behind the wheel."
"The sheriff had ruled it a homicide when he realized that a single shot had been fired before the accident, but there was no evidence that the husband was shot at the site."
"The sheriff found the husband was twice the legal limit and ruled it a drunk driving accident."
"The letters began once again, this time accusing the sheriff of covering up the true nature of the death."
"The letters also accused the sheriff of mishandling an investigation into the county coroner who had been accused of other grotesque acts."
"The harassment continued, this time with signs along the road and in 1983, the original resident who had been accused of having an affair pulled over to remove a sign."
"During the effort to remove the sign, she discovered a box was attached and inside of it was a small pistol."
"The gun was part of a booby trap designed to fire when the sign was removed."
"Paul Freshour was arrested and given 25 years, but one small problem."
"The letter writing continued even after Freshour was put in jail."
"In a new batch of letters, the author had promised to dig up the grave of a deceased baby and mail the bones to the police in the case of another potential affair turned murder."
"Hundreds of residents continued to receive personal letters until 1994 when everything stopped."- GeneralMadAnthony
Running Man
"This dude got lost in the catacombs, and they found camera footage of his journey, but at some point he drops the camera and just starts to run."
"As far as I know, nobody has found out wtf happened to him."- Cookyloco6
The world may never know the fate of these poor souls, and those responsible might never be brought to justice.
However, cold comfort though it may be for the families of those involved, there will always be people searching for answers.
As the saying goes, the truth is, indeed, out there.
The universe is majestic. It's also quite terrifying.
Think about it: At the end of the day, does any of this even matter? We just so happen to be the "lucky ones" to exist on a floating rock that revolves around a fiery orb situated in a vast ocean of stillness and nothingness.
Wild, huh? Just wait until we tell you how deadly asteroids can be...
Of course, space is far more scary than that. We haven't even begun to scratch the surface.
People shared their thoughts with us after Redditor zjaf asked the online community:
"What's the scariest space fact/mystery in your opinion?"
"The potential for complete and immediate annihilation by vacuum decay."
WhenTardigradesFly
Why did I decide to read about this right now? There goes my day.
"There could be..."
"There could be a planet-sterilizing gamma-ray burst heading our way right now. There's no way to stop it, and we wouldn't even know it's coming until it arrives."
gofunk1
No way to stop it and no escape.
What a lovely existential crisis we're all having.
"The universe outside of Earth..."
"The universe outside of Earth is completely silent. Sound on Earth travels through vibrations in the air. But in outer space, there is no air for sound to travel. Basically saying, nobody will hear you scream."
Iloveicecream
Time to rewatch Alien. This is getting me into the mood.
"That, in the space between the stars and planets..."
"That, in the space between the stars and planets, there is just the endless void.
It's the most "nothing" that there ever will be yet at the same time we can traverse this sea of infinity."
NoCalorieWater
Disconcerting and disorienting, isn't it?
"That far away..."
"A few people have said this but just the size of space is creepy to me. That far away.... but what almost depresses me more that unlike in Stargate I will never be able to travel to any of it. Would love to see whats out there."
[deleted]
Admittedly, I don't have a desire to see space. There is so much on this planet I have yet to see.
"There is a full stop to humanity..."
"There is a full stop to humanity. We will cease to exist, every single atom that is and has been earth will ultimately be destroyed, by our own sun.
Won't be for billions of years, but unless humans can successfully colonise other planets our entire existence will be inevitably wiped."
Ummar64
Have you seen how we treat our own planet? It might be in the best interest of the universe at large if we do stop.
"A... thing..."
"A... thing... that affects the motion of galaxies for hundreds of millions of light years."
[deleted]
It’s thought to just be a bigger bunch of galaxies!
"It won't be humans..."
"It won't be humans that colonize space but it will be our creation. We will have to give birth to a species that colonize space. Unfortunately, humans are not meant for space travel. If we wanted though we could reintroduce humanity at the destinations."
40Oztofreedomtoday
I'll pass, thanks. Have you dealt with humans?
"It's possible..."
"It's possible that the entire universe could have started collapsing from the center and we would not know about it (at least from Earth) for about 13.8 billion years."
R34LHooman
Imagine that. You're just chilling... watching RuPaul's Drag Race. And then, all of a sudden... darkness. You go to your death never knowing who won the Snatch Game.
"Voyager 1..."
"Voyager 1 will outlive Planet Earth."
skakodler
Who knows how long that thing will last. Maybe it'll never be found, and live for eons until its atoms begin to decay..
Okay... it's safe to say that I won't be sleeping tonight. But I can't help but be super fascinated (despite the terror), so if you'll excuse me, I'll be busy reading creepy space facts on Wikipedia until about 4 a.m. I never learn.
Have some space facts you'd like to horrify us with? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
But what's worse is an unsolved mystery, and all the resulting what-ifs can be worse than the confirmation of someone whose life has come to an untimely end.
Curious to hear examples that keep some people up at night, Redditor shayboy444 asked:
"What do you think is the creepiest/most disturbing unsolved mystery ever?"
The deaths or disappearances of those who are barely adults haunt us the most.
Fear Of Sleeping
"I am an avid unresolved mysteries reader, and I don’t know why it has stuck with my, but Karlie Guse. 16 year old girl called her stepmother to pick her up from a party, reportedly was too scared to sleep because she thought someone would kill her, and the next day she disappeared. There was some weird interviews and dynamics between step parents and birth parents and a bunch of theories abound."
– losingmydognity
The Final Shift
"The disappearance of Zebb Quinn."
"He was 18 years old when he went missing in 2000. Was working his shift at a local Walmart and afterwards wanted to look at a new car with a colleague, when he allegedly received a call that made him take off frantically. After that he was never seen again."
"The strangest thing is that a few days later his car was found in a parking lot: with the headlights turned on, a pair of lips and an exclamation mark drawn on the back window in pink lipstick - and a live Labrador puppy sitting inside."
"In 2017 the colleague was arrested for his murder but all the strange details still make no sense at all…"
– KatieAnchalie
Too Young
"Firstly, the murder of JonBenét Ramsey. Just the idea that her own parents might have done it is... disturbing, especially considering the circumstances."
"And also the Keddie Cabin murders. Not only did the 14-year-old daughter of one of the victims find them tied up and stabbed to death, three more kids were still asleep in the bedroom, having no idea what had happened."
– san_sammy
A Gruesome Discovery
"The Ibadan Forest of Horror in Nigeria. A local taxi driver goes missing and his friends create a makeshift search party and investigate a forest."
"Instead of finding their friend, they find an abandoned school (or factory) that have the remnants of a hellish torture/murder, ritual killing and human trafficking."
"8 survivors were rescued. Numerous body parts, rotting corpses and personal artifacts were found. The perpetrators were never found - although local politicians and ritualists were suspects."
"Whilst this discovery is disturbing, the mystery for me is that the original taxi driver - still hasn’t been found."
– Abandoned_Cosmonaut
More specific unresolved cases get mentioned by name.
Robert Wone
"The murder of Robert Wone is something I think about often."
"He was with friends, just staying the night and what happened to him sounds brutal. Even more disturbing to me is the fact that everyone who was in that house that evening seemingly have a pact of silence and are walking around free as a bird."
– Benend91
The Attack On A Fitness Instructor
"Missy Bevers."
"A suspect in full SWAT armor breaks into a church and smashes windows and breaks opens doors with a hammer, looking for a local fitness instructor. They then find and beat her to death before getting away. There is high quality surveillance video of both them and their car, but investigators couldn't make out the license plate. There has been a suspect who was cleared because of an alibi, and there's been no recent updates."
– wedoabitoftrolling
Burned To Death
"Jessica Chambers. She was set on fire in her car and had gasoline poured down her throat. Paramedics found her walking down the lane on fire. The only part of her body that wasn’t burned was the bottom of her feet. She did not survive. Police found a suspect but did not have enough evidence to charge him. Paramedics were so traumatized by what they saw, they had to go through therapy, and broke down on stage during interviews. She tried to name her attacker, but her throat was so destroyed, she couldn’t be understood."
– 1GamingAngel
Abandoned Kid
"Timmothy pitzen. A kid who was taken from school by his mother, went to a zoo, a water park and all those fun places a kid would love, and then went missing after his mother killed herself in response to her rocky marriage. She left a suicide note saying sorry and that Timmothy would be safe but never found. Pretty sad considering that the father still believes he’s out there but I’m betting he’s dead."
"Lived close to where it happened too but not when it initially happened."
– KorvasYT
These historical unsolved mysteries still boggles the mind.
Sabotage Of The Railway
"In my opinion, it's the City of San Francisco train derailment that occurred in Harden, NV on 08/12/1939."
"The train, run by the Southern Pacific Railroad at the time, derailed at a bridge over the Humboldt River at a speed range of 60-90 mph. The accident resulted in 24 fatalities and multiple injuries. Days later, Investigators discovered tools at the bottom of the Humboldt River, determining that the wreck was caused by sabotage of the rails."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_City_of_San_Francisco_derailment
The Paperboys Of Des Moines
"In the early 80s, all within 18 months of each other three paperboys in the Des Moines, IA area all went missing during their morning route. The cases have never been solved. There are theories ranging from an ex-employee who was a creeper kidnapping them to a lone wolf type situation."
"It's a bizarre case that has baffled Iowa for years."
– Pfroggy1
An Assassination
"The murder of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. He was killed over 30 years ago and no one have found the murder."
Murder On Campus
"In 1969, a student was killed in the stacks of the library at my old college (Penn State) and was found with a singular stab wound on her chest. It wasn’t even late or anything, and while there were many suspects, no one was ever arrested for it. It’s insane how someone could kill a person in broad daylight at a major university, and get away with it."
"It’s not really anything super crazy(in comparison to other stories here), it’s just weird to me personally because I would always study there and I didn’t find out about it until after I graduated."
– Rickdaquickk
Carnage At The Yogurt Shop
"The Yogurt Shop Murders that took place in Austin, Texas in late 1991. It's been the subject of a couple episodes on '48 Hours' and a book devoted to the case was published around five years ago: Who Killed These Girls? by Beverly Lowry."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Austin_yogurt_shop_killings
The Ease Of Poisoning
"For me the Tylenol poisonings are just off putting with how easy it was, how widespread the poisonings were, how the guy was never caught, and the lost lasting impact of the incident."
– NotSeren
Without A Trace
"the disappearance of the Beaumont Children The Beaumont Children are siblings who disappeared in 1966, there are still to this day investigations on going to try and find the remains of these children. There have been foundations of sheds and houses dug up."
"The children have never been found and the suspect(s) has never been identified."
– jnrdingo
The Killer Who Took Up Residence
"Late on the night of December 30th, 2000 in Setagaya, Tokyo, a man broke into the house of a family of four, strangled the son in his bed, stabbed the father, and brutallyThe killed the mother and daughter. The killer then spent hours in the house eating their food, using their toilet, and going through their paperwork like he owned the place, and eventually left, never to be found since."
– OtakuSoze
The Remains
"The West Mesa Bone Collector:"
"The bones of dozens of women were found at a construction site, no other clues."
– ItsSebjustSeb
In addition to the bafflement people experience over these cases, knowing that a violent suspect has walked free without suffering the consequences of their nefarious actions is infuriating.
Only the hope that karma has intervened to punish these evildoers could make us rest easy.
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